Nearpod Adventures

Nearpod Adventures

This week I chose to use Nearpod to create my assessment. As per my last post, Nearpod is an interactive slide show that promotes collaboration and engagement among students. At its core this is a tool for teachers to present and receive immediate feedback from students within the presentation. Students using the app are able to draw on slides (such as marking locations on a map or adding labels), answer multiple choice questions, create collaboration boards, polls, and so much more. Teachers launch the presentation and then are able to watch and monitor student progress through the slides in real time.

Creative Process

Originally I chose to use Nearpod because it seemed user friendly and easy to develop presentations for students. I was looking to create a primary-friendly assessment to gauge understanding of patterns at the end of a unit. I liked that Nearpod has the option for students to draw directly onto the slides, which in itself is nice for younger students to show what they know.

I really, really struggled with using Nearpod in the beginning. The first hour or so I was using it

was going back and forth between playing with the different choices (field trip was a nice

highlight, but irrelevant for my assessment) and getting frustrated with creating the individual pieces.  I should also note that this was while using an iPad, so I would imagine that the computer would offer an easier experience. That and internet explorer works much better than google chrome, at least with my experiences. 

After my frustrating hour I finally realized the Nearpod works with google slides, and changed

tactics entirely. I was able to create the slide show and then upload it onto Nearpod and add the

Draw It option to the slide so students would be able to draw in their answers directly onto the

slides. It also generates reports for the teacher to see the creative process and find the areas where

students may have struggled more than others.

Teachers and Nearpod

Once I finally understood how to properly use Nearpod, I actually really enjoyed what it has to

offer. While I used it for a math assessment, I could easily see it be used for social studies

(especially the field trip option), science (matching, fill in the blank) and short answer options.

I’m excited to try creating a new slide and becoming more proficient with this app because it has

tons of options and assessment tools that can be utilized in the classroom environment. I

appreciated that the app can easily be tailored from primary students through the upper grades

appropriately. Nearpod also has the potential to be differentiated for student with individualized

education plans and collaboration among teachers.

Click here to see presentation.